


The First Job

by gilligankane



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Gen, the Leverage version
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 01:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9633113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: Alex didn't sign up for this.She wanted to get out of Midvale to start a new life, free of the weight of other people. Now dinner can't start until they're all sitting down. Now she has to wear pants at all hours, in her own apartment, for fear of scandalizing the boys. Now she keeps the kitchen stocked for three overgrown teenagers who are always hungry.She didn't sign up for that kind of stuff.And she certainly didn't sign up to be a part of the action.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I take full responsibility for this. It just won't let me go.

Alex decides to leave Midvale after it all becomes too... everything.

It's too much. It's too hard. She's too angry. Kara is too sad. Her mom is too lost.

Her dad is gone and everything falls on her: raising a sister she never asked for, putting her mother to bed, working night shifts just to get her homework done. She goes from college student to surrogate mom and solo provider in the time it takes for Jeremiah Danvers to realize he's being doublecrossed - the split second it takes for a gun to fire.

So Alex Danvers packs her bags in the middle of the night - a picture of her family, her dad's college sweater, the $600 in cash she has stashed under her mattress, every pair of jeans she owns, and a whatever else she can grab. What she doesn't plan on taking is Kara.

"Don't leave me here, Alex," Kara begs. _Not like everyone else who has left me_ , she doesn't say.

Alex doesn't want to. She wants to get away from this life, from Midvale and its memories and the people who know everything about her.

Her dad's words echoed in her head: " _Take care of her, Alex. You're a protector. Protect her_."

" _She's not my sister_ ," Alex had said.

" _Family is just a word for the people we hold on our hearts_ ," he said. " _One day, Alexandra, she'll be all you have left. And we are all she has left._ "

Kara pushes out her lower lip, glancing back at the house Alex had been raised in, the place Kara had called home for nearly six years now. Alex remembers what her dad said, how he used to spend hours making Kara feel a part of their family. So she gives.

"Fine. You have five minutes to pack," she says firmly.

She tries not to roll her eyes when Kara reaches into the bushes and pulls out a duffel bag.

"All set!" she says cheerfully.

Alex shushes her, looking around nervously for curious neighbors. They throw their bags in the back of Jeremiah's old Buick and Alex gets in the driver's seat, turning the engine over. She pauses, just for a moment - a moment she never brings up, that Kara mercifully never brings up. In that moment, she cries. She sobs. It bubbles up in her chest, one loud, strangled, wounded cry that she hasn't loosed since a mean-faced officer from National City PD knocked on their front door. She cries for her dad and for her mom and for her future, all lost. She leans into the steering wheel, the leather stained with something so _Jeremiah_ that her whole chest aches.

Then the moment is over.

She pops a Melissa Etheridge CD into the radio and looks at Kara.

"Last chance to back out," she offers.

Kara's eyes take on a steely glint. "Let's go," she says firmly.

Alex nods once and hits the gas.

They silently, separately, vow to never go back to Midvale.

\---

Alex picks National City.

It's not by accident. The NCPD officer told her what happened, why her dad was in National City, what they suspected him of doing. He didn't say much but the pauses in her sentences gave her enough information.

Jeremiah Danvers got mixed up with the wrong people and was never good about saying no.

Alex knows about the DEO. They have newspapers in Midvale and the DEO is in it every other day. A motorcycle gang who got into the drug business, the DEO expanded into an enterprise whose reach extended to nearly all of the East Coast. Jeremiah Danvers, doing a favor for a guy who knew a guy who was friends with Kara's birth dad, got swept up in their long, cancerous reach.

And he paid for it.

With his life.

Alex can't stand it. He was a good man. He made good choices his whole life. He always tried to help people. And it got him this: a dishonorable death in a back alley in the seediest district of National City, found by street crawlers who didn't care, his case shelved by cops on the DEO's payroll.

So she points her Buick towards National City because she's got nothing to lose, not anymore.

"Where are we going?" Kara asks sleepily from the passenger seat. She pulls her legs up underneath her and leans her head against the window.

"National City."

"What are we going to do there?"

Alex grits her teeth. "We're gonna take down the DEO."

\---

The $600 she has doesn't go far. It gets her an apartment across the street from a known DEO headquarters with one bedroom that she offers to Kara. It gets them groceries for a week. An old couch with only two holes. A busted coffee table. Alex brought her own TV, from her bedroom in Midvale. The money doesn't get them much else.

She's job-hunting their second week in the city. Her cellphone is quiet; her mom hasn't called. Alex isn't surprised but it still hurts just a little. She scratches another place off her list. Unsurprisingly, up and quitting your job doesn't make for a good reference.

It's not until they leave the third diner that everything changes. She's still glaring back at the owner, furious that he tried to touch her, to "get a feel" for her before he hired her, that she doesn't even see Kara lagging behind. As they round the corner, Alex sees the owner's face twist in fury but Kara is shoving her, pushing her, and telling her to run.

So she runs.

They get down three blocks before she ducks into an alley, tugging Kara in close.

"What the hell?" she asks, panting.

Kara blows out hard, putting her hands out in front of her.

"Is that..."

"The whole register," Kara finishes. "I just... He was so rude. He doesn't deserve it."

Alex is already shaking her head. "No, we can't steal," she says.

Kara steps closer. "It's not... Okay. I stole it. But we need it." She looks around quickly and points past Alex. "That guy." Alex looks; she can barely see what Kara is pointing at but the man under the cardboard shifts just enough in his sleep that Alex can see him. "He needs it. That, that _asshole_ didn't."

Alex tries to wrap her head around this Kara. Midvale Kara, the one she knows, would be appalled, would turn and march right back up to the register and apologize for even _thinking_ about taking the money. But this new Kara has a look in her eye that says she's proud of what she did and she would do it again. Slowly, Alex takes the money and counts it out. There's $347 in bills, right there in her hand. She counts out $175 of it and hands it to Kara.

"Groceries only," she says sternly.

Kara slides the bills into her pocket happily.

The rest of it, Alex rolls tightly and slides into the jacket of the man sleeping in his cardboard castle. He doesn't move at all. She pushes Kara back out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Kara shrugs. "My mom - my birth mom - used to tell me I had sticky fingers. Jeremiah, he helped me be more... accurate."

Alex's mouth gapes wide open. "What?"

"He said it was our secret."

"No. He wasn't... He's not one of..." Alex trails off. He worked for the DEO for years without anyone in his family knowing; maybe he did keep secrets from her. Maybe he was never the man she always thought he was.

"I'm sorry, Alex," Kara says softly.

Alex shakes her head. "Do it again," she orders, an idea forming.

Kara frowns. "Do what?"

"Steal. Pickpocket. Whatever you call it."

Kara eyes her cautiously, but turns her attention to the people of National City, walking up and down the sidewalk, going about their day. Alex watches her eyes land on a woman coming towards them, oblivious to everyone around her. She's yelling into her phone, her purse swinging wildly from side to side. Alex watches as Kara leans against a bench, attention focused on the cars driving by. She watches Kara fall into step as the woman passes the bench. She watches Kara's fingers dance through the air before they land in the woman's pocket, pirouette inside, and emerge with a stack of bills.

Alex whistles lowly. The woman keeps walking without so much as a hitch in her step. Kara grins.

"How was that?"

"Impressive."

Kara's grin widens impossibly. "I can do it again," she offers.

"No," Alex says quickly. "We need to make rules. There's enough scum in this city. We won't be more of it." She reaches for Kara's arm, pulling her closer. "So whatever you get, half goes to us. The other half, we give away."

"Like Robin Hood," Kara exclaims. "So cool."

"I'm serious, Kara. We still need jobs, too."

Kara nods. "I can find something."

Alex shakes her head. "You should be in school."

Kara groans.

Alex cuts off whatever she's going to say. "It's a rule. School during the day."

"What about after school?" Kara asks.

"My rule is, school," Alex repeats slowly, trying to make a point. "And half of what you get goes to people who need it."

Kara nods slowly as the information sinks in. "Okay!" she says after a minute. "What're you going to do?"

\---

Alex gets a job at a doctor's office, as a receptionist. Her first paycheck goes towards a kitchen table. Kara comes home with chairs and Alex doesn't have the energy to ask where they came from.

Between her steady income and Kara's extracurriculars, their apartment slowly fills up. But so does the apartment of the guy living below him. And one day, someone gets the elevator working. Then suddenly the staircases are all refastened and painted. A working lock appears on the building's door; everyone gets a new key and a buzzer. The plumbing issue affecting every floor below 3 is finally fixed. Almost every tenant pays their rent a month ahead without knowing how.

The neighborhood starts to pick up, too. The Rec Center on her block gets an anonymous donation for new basketball hoops. A guy shows up with paint and tells them he was hired over the phone to put a mural up on the wall. A handicapped ramp gets put in. Night security starts working on a Sunday and break-ins are down to zero by Wednesday.

People start to notice that things are on the up and up. Alex tells Kara to slow herself down; they have enough to keep them afloat for a while. If something comes up, they can start over. " _We don't want to draw attention to ourselves_ ," she says, looking out of their living room window at the motorcycle repair place across the street. Someone revs their engine, emphasizing her point.

Then Jimmy Olsen shows up at her building, buzzes her apartment incessantly, and won't go away until he sees her.

"I'm Jimmy Olsen," he says when she finally goes downstairs to see what all the ruckus is about. "I knew your dad."

She ushers him inside and locks the door behind him.

"Nice place," he says as he eyes the apartment. He reaches out to touch the wall; his fingertips come back "June Day" yellow.

"Wet paint," she says dryly. "You said you knew my dad?"

"Jeremiah Danvers." Jimmy sighs. "Shame what happened to him. I really thought he was getting out."

"Getting out?"

Jimmy nods. "Yeah. He came into the city that weekend to talk to Henshaw, the guy running National City's show. He wanted out. His contract was up and he wasn't looking to renew."

Alex frowns. "How do you know this?"

Jimmy sits on the couch, his knees up to his ears, it's so low. He sighs. "My partner, Clark. They knew each other."

"Your partner," Alex repeats slowly.

Jimmy puts his hands up. "No, not like that. We were undercover together. Clark was my partner on the force. I pulled out. I couldn't stand to try and work it out, not when the DEO is getting all this backup support from NCPD. But Clark..." Jimmy sighs sadly. "He's been looking for a purpose his whole life. I guess he finally found it."

"How do I know you're not working for the DEO?" Alex asks. She suddenly wishes Kara was here. Not that she could help, at all. But it'd be nice to have someone who cares about her around, just in case this Jimmy Olsen is looking to tie up a loose end. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't," Jimmy says, shrugging. He reaches into his back pocket, slowly when he notices that Alex's hand curls up into a fist. "But here. Jeremiah told me to give you this if I ever did find you." He hands her a small, wrapped object. "I went to Midvale but your mom said you left. So I came back to National City. Then I heard about this crappy block in a DEO neighborhood that's suddenly coming back to life, without explanation. So I did what every other guy in this city would do. I sat on the bench by the McDonalds and I watched."

Alex forgets about the package in her hand. Her mouth goes dry.

"Your girl, Kara, right?" Jimmy continues. "She's good. But she's sloppy. I mean, people never know they're getting picked. But everyone around her can see it. And if I'm noticing, you bet the DEO will too."

"I didn't..." Alex starts. "Oh god." She stands abruptly, going through the kitchen cabinet drawers until she finds their emergency fund, stashed inside a hollow rolling pin. She pulls all of the cash out, not bothering to sort it or flatten it. She thrusts the handfuls at Jimmy. "Take it. And if this isn't enough to keep you quiet, I'll get more."

Jimmy stands up and for the first time, Alex notices how tall and assuming he is. His shoulders are as wide as her doorway. He steps closer and closer until Alex is backed up against the kitchen table and then he reaches for her. She swallows heavily, ready to accept her fate and wishing she had signed up for those self-defense classes at the Rec Center.

But Jimmy puts his oven mitt-sized hands on hers, gently, and smiles down at her.

"You're misunderstanding," he says quietly. "I want in. I want to help. The DEO took my partner, a good man, and made him into someone I don't even recognize. And I'm tired of them running this city. We're not Gotham. They don't own us all. We need to fight back."

Kara bursts through the front door and stops short. She frowns at Alex and Jimmy, their hands still intertwined.

"I thought you liked girls?" she says, breezing by them and into her room.

\---

Jimmy is already running a one-man show. He calls himself Guardian, a vigilante who is trying to single-handedly clean up the Warehouse district. Alex grimaces when he tells her. The Warehouse district is a mix of civilians who don't care, civilians who are threatened into not caring, and criminal wanna-bes looking to be noticed.

Alex laughs the first time she seems him in his ridiculous helmet. She recommends something more like Daredevil, but Kara sits on their holey-couch and her eyes are the size of moons. Alex groans inwardly. Kara never showed any interest in boys back in Midvale and Alex isn't ready for her to discover them now. He casually mentions he had to give up his apartment across town and Kara offers him the couch.

"He won't even fit on it," Alex argues later that night. "The couch barely fits us."

Kara comes home the next day with a couch that fits Jimmy from head to toe. Alex doesn't want to know.

So Jimmy moves in and tries to get both of them to call him James, but Alex won't bite. She calls him 'Jimmy' incessantly. Kara though, calls him James and bats her eyes at him and Alex vows to keep an eye on that.

They all go about their business: Jimmy is still on the force and Alex is still a receptionist, and Kara is still a college student. At night, they split wings or pizza and wish Jimmy good luck or patch him up when he comes home.

One night, he comes home and there's a skinny kid in a cardigan holding him up.

"James," Kara gasps, rushing to the door. She takes all of Jimmy's weight and drops it to the couch, overturning her abandoned popcorn bowl. "What happened?"

She's talking to the skinny kid who is looking around their apartment in muted awe. "This? This is Guardian's secret lair?"

Alex stalks towards him, forcing him back against the door. "What happened to him?"

The skinny kid flinches, anticipating a punch Alex hasn't thrown yet. "I found him. Near the docks. I was... there's a Starbucks. I left and he was outside, like this."

Alex moves back towards the couch. Kara has the first aid kid opened, bandages pulled apart. Alex sighs and gently nudges Kara out of the way. She pulls of Jimmy's helmet slowly, fearing a head injury, but she doesn't see one. His eyes flutter open and he manages a smile.

"Did I lose the fight?" he asks.

Alex rolls her eyes. "You idiot," she murmurs.

She peels away his shirt, nearly sliced clean in half by what looks to be a serrated knife his arm has the most blood but the least damage. Just below his breastbone, there's a nice, jagged line cutting towards his right side.

"Get me the suture kit," she tells Kara. She looks at the skinny kid. "Do you know how to sew?"

He brightens. "Funny you should ask that. I'm working on a suit all of my own where I'm blending-"

"I don't care," Alex says dismissively. "I just need you to sew up the nick on his arm and I can do his chest."

Kara hands her the suture kid and gets to work prepping the area. All of the floor lamps go on and she draws the curtains that look out towards the DEO club. The skinny kid steps in, taking a pair of gloves from Alex and a needle from Kara.

Together, they stitch him up quickly and quietly. Jimmy groans a few times and winces a couple more, but he hangs tight and doesn't fuss and Alex is glad for that. Glancing back quickly, she looks at Kara. Her eyes zero in on a small scar above her collarbone; a pickpocketing that ended up with someone else trying to take the cash. Kara left that alley with a small slice to her clavicle; the other guy barely left. If Kara had only stayed still while Alex stitched her, the scar would barely be noticeable.

"I'm Winn, by the way," the skinny kid says. "Winn Schott, Jr."

Alex doesn't care. She doesn't want to know this person. She wants him to go.

"I don't care," she replies, snipping the end of the stitch.

Kara glares at her. "It's nice to meet you, Winn," she says nicely.

Jimmy sits up with a groan, a hand pressing against his abdomen. "Thanks, man. I probably would have died out there without you."

Alex rolls her eyes and peels her gloves off, wrapping them up in one of the biohazard bags she invested in for this very reason. "No, you wouldn't have," she corrects him. "You would have been dizzy but you wouldn't have lost so much blood that you would have died. Drama queen," she mutters.

Jimmy ignores her. "Seriously, man. If there's anything I can ever do to repay you, say the word."

Winn tilts his head to the side and pulls his lips back in a way that Alex thinks maybe he thinks is a cute smile and says, "well now that you mention it..."

\---

They've been living in Midvale for nearly three months before anything really big happens. Jimmy is still sleeping on her couch and Alex and Kara bunk together in the bedroom and now there's a computer hacker with a love of cardigans and petty mayhem sleeping in her bathtub.

Alex didn't sign up for this.

She wanted to get out of Midvale to start a new life, free of the weight of other people. Now dinner can't start until they're all sitting down. Now she has to wear pants at all hours, in her own apartment, for fear of scandalizing the boys. Now she keeps the kitchen stocked for three overgrown teenagers who are always hungry.

She didn't sign up for that kind of stuff.

And she certainly didn't sign up to be a part of the action.

Alex was content to bide her time; to scope out a small, but important, DEO headquarter and find out what she could. She made acquaintances with all the neighborhood shop owners. Julio down at the flower shop, Glenda at the bakery, Tom at the gas station, and even Marlene at the liquor - though Marlene pretty much hates everyone. They keep an eye out, on her behalf. The twenty she leaves behind when she asks questions certainly doesn't hurt either. She leaves the actual, physical, day-to-day stuff to the wanna-bes; to Kara who rips off tourists and Jimmy who puts away more guys at night than he does on the job and Winn who shuts down Taco Bells and banks for equal enjoyment. Alex just wants information so she can put it up on her "creepy wall of crime" - Winn's words, not hers.

But then the DEO goes after Mrs. Weinstein.

And Alex isn't here for _that_ either.

Mrs. Weinstein lives below them, in apartment 3D. She's the only tenant who has lived in the building since it opened and she was just so damn grateful for Alex fixing that plumbing problem.

Alex tries to tell her, multiple times, that she's not the one responsible.

Each time, Mrs. Weinstein says "bullshit" and gives Alex a homemade chocolate cookie.

So Alex has a soft spot for Mrs. Weinstein and her cookies and she doesn't like when people poke her in her soft spots.

Breaking down Mrs. Weinstein door, waving a gun in her face, then backhanding her? Alex considers that a definite 'poke'.

"I'm fine, Alexandra," Mrs. Weinstein insists.

Alex growls again and in the general direction of the DEO headquarters. She turns and snaps at Kara. "What do we know?"

Jimmy speaks up. "Police report says that around 11:30 last evening, the apartment of Henrietta Weinstein was forcibly entered by an unknown assailant."

"DEO," Alex corrects.

"Alex, we don't know that-"

"Uh, actually," Winn interrupts. "We do." He turns the computer he's on towards them. It the security camera feed for the building. Alex had them installed after Winn got all the way up the stairs with Jimmy bleeding through his suit. "See?" He points to a large shadow in the corner of the screen. "See the left forearm? He's got-"

"Handlebars," Alex finishes. "This one is Clyde Bailey. I remember reading about him." Alex reaches for a file on the side table in the kitchen. She's long-since taken it over with files and dossiers Jimmy make copies of for her. She glances apologetically at Mrs. Weinstein. The elderly woman stares back at her with one eye swollen shut.

Kara hands her a bag of peas. "This is all we have," she says with a shrug.

Mrs. Weinstein waves her off. "I'm fine, dear. It was silly of me to file that report. James, would you be sure to lose that file at work tomorrow?"

Jimmy looks to Alex first.

Alex stares Mrs. Weinstein down. "Only if you let us take care of it," she bargains.

Mrs. Weinstein stares back for a long moment. "Fine," she finally says.

Jimmy folds the official report, on loan from the cop who answered the call, and slides it into his pocket. "It's like it never happened," he promises.

"Clyde Bailey," Alex continues. "He's done time for B&E, assault and battery, and surprise, surprise - intimidation of a witness. Twice."

"But what would they want with you?" Winn asks Mrs. Weinstein.

Mrs. Weinstein looks practically offended. She puts down the bag of peas she still hasn't applied to the swelling around her eye and turns to face Winn. "I have watched that good for nothing motorcycle club become Medusa-like, snaking through this city. I've known Clyde Bailey since he was a boy, running around inhaling exhaust fumes. You think I didn't recognize him? I told him, "son, if you're going to kill me, you take that mask off before you do it". I knew his father and his grandfather. I've lived in this building for nearly all of your lives out together. I know things about this neighborhood that they never will." She crosses her arms over her chest. "And when you know things, people tend to get pushy if you won't tell them."

Alex is half-listening to the story. She's looking out across the street at the dimly lit club door, a faded motorcycle stenciled on. She turns back to the group, her face stretched in a smirk. "If intimidation is what he likes, let's give it to him."

\---

It doesn't go as planned. Kara loses Clyde - actually loses him even though he's handcuffed to a radiator in the building's basement. Alex, ready in the spare apartment at the very top of the building, fists ready to knock some sense into Clyde, pulls the phone away from her ear and frowns. She presses the receiver back to her ear and Kara is still talking.

"- he wasn't, like, hard to catch the first time so this shouldn't be too-"

"Kara," Alex says through gritted teeth. "Find him. Now!"

She hangs up and sighs heavily. Winn looks up from his computer and frowns at her. "Almost ready? I'm at the last step before I activate the newsfeed and run the message."

They had debated the message for hours the night before. Alex wasn't going to approve anything ridiculous, like "Clyde Bailey sucks" or "Clyde Bailey is a BULLY." She definitely wasn't going to approve Kara's choice: Clyde Bailey can suck my dick. They finally settled on _We_ _Won't_ _Be_ _Silenced_ as a mantra and message. They were going to play the phrase over a real-time newsfeed of Clyde Bailey tied to the radiator in the building basement.

Only, Kara has lost him.

"Jimmy," Alex whispers into the mic strapped to the side of her head. "You start at the basement and work your way up. I'll start here and work my way down. Winn has eyes on all the entrances and exits. We'll find him."

And they do, find him. He's hiding in Carol Ann Lynch's shower, in apartment 2C, still carrying the apparently-portable radiator Kara handcuffed him to.

It takes nearly twice as long as they planned for it to take but by the time they finish, Clyde is been smacked around enough to never mess with Mrs. Weinstein again and his face is plastered on every Starbucks screen in National City.

\---

"So you basically run a home for wayward Merry Men," Maggie finally says. She takes a swig of her beer, eying Alex over the bottleneck.

"I resent the Robin Hood reference," Alex finally says.

Maggie leans over and tugs at Alex's hoodie. "You're literally wearing green right now."

Alex leans out of Maggie's reach. "Well, that's my story. From start to, well, start."

Maggie grins and leans forward, cutting their distance in half when Alex settles back in her seat. "It's honestly the cutest origin story I've ever heard. I mean, you get into the big boy game because your elderly neighbor gets intimidated by some DEO scumbag?"

Alex narrows her eyes. "It wasn't quite like that."

Maggie laughs. "That's exactly what it was, babe."

"I'm not your babe," Alex says defensively.

Maggie's smile fades into a look of seriousness. "Not yet. You keep avoiding me. It's a wonder you even stayed when I sat down." She puts up her hands when Alex opens her mouth to interrupt. "I get it. Love in a time of neighborhood warfare and all of that, but come on, Alex."

"Come on what?" Alex asks. "I didn't get up because to boxed me in and ordered me a beer. Which is funny, coming from the girl who never called."

Maggie groans, pressing her forehead to the bartop. "Alex..."

Alex shrugs. "For being employed full time and working part time as 'Robin Hood', I am surprisingly reachable. And... interested," she adds slowly.

Maggie's eyebrow arches. "Oh?"

"In finishing our conversation from last time," Alex finishes quickly.

"We weren't doing a lot of talking," Maggie reminds her, her hand dangerously close to landing on Alex's thigh under the bar.

"Maggie..."

"Alex," Maggie counters.

"Maggie," Alex repeats, lowering her voice.

Maggie's eyes sparkle in the bar's lowlights. "Alex," she says again.

Alex leans in slowly, her mouth ghosting along Maggie's cheekbone until her lips rest on her ear. "Don't look now but we have a visitor. 6 o'clock. Black jacket, black boots."

Slowly, Maggie pulls a small umbrella out of the drink of the guy next to them, turning it pointed side down so it extends out of her palm.

Alex slides a thin razor from her sleeve down to her palm. She watches Maggie glance at it quick and she would almost swear Maggie I impressed.

"Don't think I'm gonna forget the part where you said you were interested," Maggie says conversationally as she gets up and starts heading to the exit.

Alex watches their shadow move with them, picking up his coat calmly and heading for the door behind them. "You are, like, the coolest," she gushes, faking drunk.

Maggie catches on quickly, throwing in a fake stumble as they burst out of the bar door and into the cool night. They lean into each, giggling incessantly, making note of this guy's every move.

They're halfway to the car when Alex says " _now_ " and they turn to square off.

\---

"Did you have a good time?" Kara calls as Alex shuts the apartment door and locks it.

Alex sighs and touches two fingers to her bottom lip. "I'm going to bed," she says, a small smile on her lips. She floats past the couch and into the room she shares with Kara.

She drifts back into the living room, leveling a hard glare at Kara and Jimmy, tangled up on the couch. "Do not," she says sternly, "Do _not_ ever have sex in my bed. Or break her heart," she finishes.

She closes the bedroom door behind her and lays down in bed and thinks about how nice it might be to have Maggie Sawyer be a part of her story.


End file.
